Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

size is 1.4 ha. The largest farms are found in the Northern region followed by the Center and the
South. Average farm size also varies by the gender of the household head; it is about 1.1 ha for
female headed households and 1.5 ha for male-headed ones (not reported in Table 5.9). In
addition, while 28 percent of the female-headed households are located in the bottom farm size
quintile, only 7 percent of these households find themselves in the top farm size quintile. For
male-headed households, the distribution is more even. In Table 5.10, the above farm size
characteristics are disaggregated by farm size quintiles. We note that larger farm sizes are due to
both a greater number of plots and larger plot sizes.
Most farm households own their farmland; only about 2.5 percent rent their land. Plots are for the
most part inherited (77 percent) or allocated by the village chief (20 percent). About 6 perecent
of the plots use irrigated water or a combination of irrigation and rainwater. The rest rely on
rainfed agriculture. On average, it takes the farmer about 18 minutes to get to his/her plot from
his/her house. Most management decisions regarding the farm plot are made by the household
head. Management decisions by the spouse or jointly by both spouses are only made in 5 percent
and 8 percent of the households respectively.
Figure 5.1 shows the distribution of households by farm size. About 37 percent of the
smallholder households have less than 1 ha, 42 percent between 1 and 2 ha, 19 percent between 2
to 4 ha, and 2 percent above 4 ha. This distribution does not conform with the 1992 estimates
from the World Bank which suggest that about 55 percent of small farmers cultivate less than 1
hectare (World Bank, 1995). This discrepancy is perhaps due to the fact that farmers tend to
over-estimate their plot size. Additional random inspection of a sample of the surveyed farmers
suggests that the farm area reported by the farmers was on average about 30 percent larger that
the actual farm-size as measured by the enumerators.
As shown in Figure 5.2, farm size is positively associated with expenditure levels, but not in a
linear fashion. While the poorest farmers have the smallest farm size and the richest farmers have
the largest farms, the farm size of the groups in the middle expenditure category is fairly similar
across categories. On the other hand, dividing farm size by household size shows that farm size
per capita increases more significantly across expenditure groups. This indicates that richer
households tend to not only have larger farm sizes but also bigger farms per capita because of the
smaller size of their family.
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